Trump administration downplay scandal as 'witch hunt' amid leaked chat concerns

After a journalist was inadvertently included to a group conversation regarding airstrikes on Yemen, US President Donald Trump downplayed a growing crisis on Tuesday, claiming that any secret material was exchanged and protecting a senior adviser over the incident.

Trump stated that he would “look into” the usage of the Signal app and presented a united front at a meeting with US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who mistakenly included The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg in the discussion.

As Democrats smelt blood for the first time since the Republican took office in January, Trump doubled down, calling Goldberg a “sleazebag” and said “nobody gives a damn” about the issue that has shaken Washington.

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Journalist Goldberg said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information in the Signal chat about targets, weapons and timing ahead of the strikes on March 15. Goldberg also revealed highly critical comments by top US officials about European allies.

“There was no classified information,” Trump told reporters when asked about the chat, saying that the commercial app Signal was used by “a lot of people in government.”

Waltz said US technical and legal experts were looking into the breach but insisted he had “never met, don’t know, never communicated” with the journalist.

“We are looking into him, reviewing how the heck he got in,” said Waltz when Trump asked him to comment during a meeting with new US ambassadors at the White House.

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‘Sloppy, careless, incompetent’

Their comments came as part of an aggressive Trump administration pushback against the scandal.

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe – who were both reported to be in the chat – endured a stormy Senate Intelligence Committee hearing over the leak.

“There was no classified material that was shared,” Gabbard, who has previously caused controversy with comments sympathetic to Russia and Syria, told the committee.

Ratcliffe confirmed he was involved in the Signal group but said the communications were “entirely permissible and lawful.”

Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organization like the Pentagon, had said on Monday that “nobody was texting war plans.”

But Democrats on the committee called on Waltz and Hegseth to resign.

Senator Mark Warner blasted what he called “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior.”

Other White House officials also went on the attack.

“Don’t let enemies of America get away with these lies,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X, describing the row as a “witch hunt.”

Trump and his aides have repeatedly used the same term to dismiss an investigation into whether the Republican’s 2016 election campaign colluded with Moscow.

‘Freeloading’

But the report has sparked concerns over the use of a commercial app instead of secure government communications – and about whether US adversaries may have been able to hack in.

Trump’s special Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was included in the group, CBS News reported.

The report also revealed potentially embarrassing details of what top White House officials think about key allies.

Trump said he agreed with Pentagon chief Hegseth’s reported comments in the chat that European nations were “freeloading” off the United States.

“Yeah I think they’ve been freeloading,” Trump told reporters. “The European Union’s been absolutely terrible to us on trade.”

In the chat, a user identified as Vice President JD Vance opposed the strikes saying that “I just hate bailing Europe out again” as countries there were more affected by Huthi attacks on shipping than the United States.

A user identified as Hegseth replies: “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC.”

The Huthi rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the “axis of resistance” of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.

They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks at ships passing Yemen in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, saying they were carried out in solidarity with Palestinians.